


The trial of Jaime Lannister

by katiebuttercup



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-02 21:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18819439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiebuttercup/pseuds/katiebuttercup
Summary: Jaime’s got deja vu; He’s back on trial again in front of Sansa Stark





	The trial of Jaime Lannister

It’s so ridiculous he almost laughs. He sways on his feet, he’s been under lock and key since he’d been dragged from the rubble in kings landing though they’ve been kind enough to send someone to tend to his wounds in the interim. 

Sansa Stark sits before him, cold and emotionless as her damned north.

“You stand before us-“

“Can you get to the part where you put my head on a pike,” Jaime interrupts, ignores his brother’s shocked gasp to his left. 

Sansa barely reacts. The girl really is good. “Perhaps, but id like to turn you on the spit a little while longer,”

There are questions; did he kill Cersei? No. Did he ever plan to kill her. No. What were you doing in the cellar of the keep? Trying to escape. He keeps Tyrion’s name out of it. He is the last of the Lannister’s now, or will be when the farce of a trial is over. It’ll be a relief, he thinks. 

He tries not to scan the crowd, to look for a blonde figure. He doesn’t see her. He swallows hard. He doesn’t know whether he’s greatful or not. He doesn’t deserve to see Brienne’s face one last time until he is reunited with his twin but he wants it.

He wants so many contrary things it makes him wanto throw up. He wants to see Brienne but he also wants to be at rest with Cersei. He’s just so bloody tired of all of it. His soul has been dead a long time, it’s time his body caught up. 

“Will anyone vouch for him?” Sansa asks. Jaime finds himself holding his breath, hoping beyond hope but there is no one, no loyal knight defending his honour this time. Something inside him shrivels and dies. 

He blinks rapidly against the onslaught of tears. 

He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up, not now. He’s burned too many bridges-not as many as the dragon queen perhaps but enough. 

For the first time Sansa seems uncertain, looking amongst her advisors as if she to were searching for someone. 

“I will deliberate.” She says finally. Jaime huffs as he is dragged from the room. Great more waiting. He can hardly contain himself. 

He waits, he is given a room with a bed and food but there are guards constantly at his door and the windows are barred. He doesn’t know what Sansa is waiting for. He betrayed the north to return to his sister, to save her or die with her it matters little. He’d made his choice and he couldn’t regret it, not as much as he wished he could. 

He thinks of writing a letter to Brienne but he’s allowed no paper and he has no idea what to say, what could possibly make their last parting easier. If he didn’t care about her it would be easier. If he could love her as fully as she loved him everything would have been easier. There were many ifs and maybes. He just isn’t good enough. 

He sees her once or twice as is transported from  
place to place-he’s allowed a certain amount of exercise a day, always heavily guarded and then he catches glimpses of her and his heart leaps despite himself. He wants to call to her but finds shame clogging his throat. He tells himself he doesn’t call for her because he was liable to get a backhand from the guards. They didn’t treat him badly per se but Jaime could read a room. 

He wishes for death rather than this stagnation. Perhaps this is his punishment-to be forever separated from his twin and in this state of inertia forever. It feels like hell. But he doesn’t deserve the mercy of a quick death he knows that. 

Brienne comes to him in the fourth week of his imprisonment. She brings him a plate of food and clean clothes, normally brought by the maid. Jaime wonders if Sansa is cruel enough to make Brienne tell him when he is to be executed.  
Instead she says.

“I suppose in the end it really is just about houses and loyalty,”

He has to scratch his memory for the quote, remembers it from his last tribunal in front of the north. He wants to object but then remembers everything he was willing to throw away for Cersei and shuts his mouth. 

“I suppose so, I am sorry, I never meant to hurt you,”

Brienne must be taking lessons form her liege lady because her face remains impassive. 

“Perhaps not, but that is the outcome.” Brienne straightens, he recognises the signs of her gathering her courage and he braces himself for the heartache. 

“I vouched for you, Jaime Lannister”

That wasn’t what he had expected. 

“I stood before those I have sworn to protect and told them that you could be trusted and on my word they believed you and yet at the earliest convenience you run back to-“ she can’t bare to say her name, Jaime realises, his heart shattering into a million peices 

“A knights word is her honour, an oath-“

“There was a reason I was called oathbreaker, Brianne,”

“Not only have you betrayed me but you have cast doubt on my own loyalties...”

“No one could ever doubt your loyaties...” Jaime interrupts. He’ll take any slander, any slur but not Brienne whose heart was noble and good and true

“But they do.” Brienne says, “luckily lady Sansa was very lenient about my indiscretion”

“Indiscretion? Is that what we’re calling it?” Jaime asks.

“It seems to fit the situation,” Brienne is stiff now, as if suddenly aware he’s goaded her into emotion. 

“I know there is honour in you, Jaime, you never promised me anything or indicated that this was anything more than what it was. I was the foolish one to read more into it. There is certainly honour in wishing to die with the woman you love, even if it is a woman like Cersei.”

“If I could change...”

“You can’t and wishing it so does not make it so. You have proven how far you are willing to go for love.”

“I can’t explain what brings me back to her, I cared about her more than I ever cared about myself. But she is gone now.” He reaches for Brienne but she shrugs him off.

“I am not some consolation prize,” Brienne says, “but that’s how you made me feel, and I will never forgive you for that.” She takes a deep, cleansing breath. “I understand that your loyalties were ultimately to her, I don’t begrudge you for that, but you shouldn’t have come to me that night knowing that.”

“I didn’t know!” Jaime says urgently, “I was genuinely happy during our time together, I love you Brienne,”

“Just not enough,” she finishes for him and it sounds like a death sentence. What can he say? He’s an idiot. 

“Lady Sansa has offered a trade. Your life for never setting foot in the seven kingdoms again,”

“Exile,” Jaime breathes, aghast. Brienne nods.

“Is that what you want?”

“If there is one thing we have learned from all of this is what I want doesn’t really matter.” She takes a step away from him, it may as well have been a mile.

“What will you do now?” 

“That really doesn’t concern you,” he can see the cracks in her armour and it makes him love her more, makes him want to reach for her.

“So I’ll never see you again?” Jaime asks, the weight of it sinking into his bones like the rubble of the red keep. 

“That didn’t seem to bother you before...” he takes her shoulders, desperate and yearning, “Brienne, I know I don’t deserve anything from you but please...” 

“You have escaped with your life, Jaime. Be greatful.” She advises him. “I would pack and be gone before nightfall you have a long journey ahead”

And then she is turning away and all he can do is stare, open mouthed, words clamouring in his throat, his heart breaking. 

Sansa Stark hadn’t given him a new start she had given him a life sentence. Clever girl.


End file.
